


it's only comfort, calling late

by RobinTheSpotlight



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Castiel & Sam Winchester Friendship, Comfort, Early Season 14, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Hurt Castiel, Emotionally Hurt Sam Winchester, Emotions, Gen, Hugs, Hurt Castiel, Hurt Jack Kline, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Kind of a Case Fic, Made up creatures, Sam Winchesters Big Hugs, cuteness, lots of comfort, talking about feelings, talking about problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-17 06:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17554838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinTheSpotlight/pseuds/RobinTheSpotlight
Summary: Dean was back, and Dean was resting, but Sam needed something to make the past few months feel a little more... normal.Sam, Cas and Jack go on a hunt, and it leads to a much needed conversation between two people who don't talk about their problems anywhere near as much as they should, and a few much-needed hugs.





	it's only comfort, calling late

Dean was back. It had been weeks, but he was where he belonged; in the bunker, with his family. When Sam got word of a hunt surprisingly near their ‘home’, he immediately thought that it would be a good way to get Dean back in the game after the time he had spent trapped with Michael. A normal hunt for the normal routine, no scars and no archangels. So, he had gone to get his brother from… wherever he was.

When he had found him, Dean had been sleeping, slumped on a chair lying against the map table with an empty bottle of beer and a half-eaten bowl of soup. Mary was sitting up on the table next to him, stroking his hair and humming a gentle tune that he did not recognise. She smiled at him, but there was a faraway glaze in her eyes.

He wouldn’t bother them. Dean looked comfortable, even being in such a bad sleeping position. There was no point in calling him out for something that only his brother might want. For Dean, normalcy was now life in the bunker. Mary would look out for him.

There was still a hunt that needed dealt with. Sam retreated from the room, heading back to where Jack was in the back corner of the library. The kid was more reserved today, and Sam wondered if it was due to his visit to his Grandparents still filling his mind. He decided something, in that moment.

“Hey, Jack?” He used a quiet voice even though Dean was far away, not wishing to disturb his sleep. The kid looked up from the book he was reading, tilting his head questioningly in a way so reminiscent of Cas that Sam almost laughed. “If you go and find Cas, I have a quick hunt that we should go and sort out. Just me, you and him; to give Dean some privacy alone-time to work through stuff.”

Jacks face lit up massively at that. He immediately closed his book, whatever he was doing put on hold at the idea of a hunt. “When do we leave?”

\---

No hunt ever goes as easily as advertised. What they thought to be a simple spirit, a kid drowned in a deep lake in the Nebraskan countryside dragging even more children to their watery grave, turned out to be a freshwater serpent possessed by a spirit (and that was a very strange experience, trying to exorcise a ghost from a giant-ass reptile) that did NOT go down easily.

Eventually, Cas had got it. Decapitation by an iron blade blessed in salt water. Luckily the water hadn’t needed to be from the sea, even if the ridiculously hard to find lore had stated that it should. In the end, they had used an entire bag of rock salt (just to be on the safe side).

And, as it was a Winchester hunt, things had not gone anywhere close to plan. By the end of the fight, Cas had half his ribs cracked (luckily the damn serpent had gone for the their most-likely-to-heal party member with its most vicious attack, a sweeping tail powered by however many pounds of angry snake muscle), Sam had yet another minor concussion, and Jack…

The kid was unconscious in the back of the car now, cold and shivering and soaking wet. The serpent had dragged him into the water like it had with all the kids it had killed. While Sam drove, Cas was in the back, warming Jack up so he wouldn’t get hypothermia from the cold lake water.

It was then, driving to the nearest motel to warm up, that Sam realised properly, for somehow the first time, that it was not just him and Dean in his life anymore. He almost laughed as he realised. Even though Cas had been with them for so long, and now Jack and Mom as well, it was strange to not be alone.

The thought of his family warmed the chills right out of him.

\---

Jack was settled in the bed at the motel. His breathing was deep and even, and the shivering had stopped. The kid was wrapped in blankets and snoring gently. The past few days had really worn him out.

“Here, Cas, let me check your ribs again.” He gestured Cas over to the other bed to perch on the end. When Cas rose gently from where he was sitting on the end of Jacks’ bed, there was no visible sign he was still in pain. However, this was Cas. Sam wasn’t going to let him get away with not being checked up.

Cas winced a little as he pressed gently on the lightly bruised area, but didn’t let out any screeches of pain, so Sam wasn’t all that worried. “Thank you, Sam. I appreciate your help.” Though his speech sounded genuine, as Cas so often sounded, it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Sam frowned. “It looks like you’re healing up nicely there. Shouldn’t be longer than an hour or two before you are all the way done.” He realised something was off with Cas and thought about the best way to approach the topic while Cas buttoned his shirt back up.

“How have you been doing lately, Cas? With the whole… Michael-from-an-alternate-world thing?”

Cas exhaled heavily and shuffled back until he was properly sitting on the bed, and Sam repositioned himself to be in a better spot for a conversation. He was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was being to drag Cas into a conversation. It usually took… well, he would say it took more effort, but in all honesty, he’d not tried for a proper, serious non-Dean related conversation with his friend in quite a while. Unless it was Dean related, which it likely could be. Cas really needed some hobbies to converse about…

Sam pulled himself out of his thoughts and back to the motel room where Cas was giving him a signature soul-searching stare. He looked almost… worried.  
“Sam… I am very sorry.” Cas stopped there, looking down at his knees and giving no hint that he had anything else to say.

“Uhm… what for, Cas? You’re confusing me here, man.” The silence in the room after Sam spoke seemed very thick, but not tense. It was a strange atmosphere. He was very confused.

“For what is happening with Dean and Michael. And what has happened with you.” Cas had a strange tone of voice on, apologetic and… accepting? Sam wondered if he had missed some of the conversation, if he had blanked out for a while, because he was totally lost on what was going on.

“Cas, you’re gonna need to expand a bit, buddy. I have no clue what you are on about.”

When Cas looked up, his face was showing far more emotion than it normally did. Guilt and sadness, acceptance and comfort. “Sam… all of what has happened is my fault. The only reason that Michael is here at all… the only reason Dean was taken…” he trailed off and Sam felt himself tense. Had Cas done something in the alternate world that had led them to their present situation?

“Cas. Continue.” He tried to calm his voice; whatever his friend was trying to confess was clearly taking a lot out of him, and he didn’t want to make him feel like he needed to stop.

“Sam… If I had not released Lucifer, none of this would have ever happened.”

He couldn’t help himself; the name made him flinch. Cas lowered his gaze again, clearly waiting for something. Sam closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Losing his cool here wasn’t going to help at all.

He reached a hand over to Cas and gently lifted his chin, making eye contact with the angel. The eyes he made contact with were bright with unshed tears, and Sam could feel Cas preparing himself for a violently worded deprecation. Sam felt his heart ache at the thought that Cas could have gone for so long still thinking he held the blame for that.

“Cas… no.” He shuffled closer to give his friend some warmth and comfort (not too little or too late, he hoped). “What you did, what you… brought out into the world, Lucifer… it was what seemed to be the best move at that time.” He swallowed. Lucifer had done so much, and he could hear the devil laughing when Sam thought he was be safe. Still… Cas needed to know that Sam did not blame him. His friends’ eyes remained on him, clinging on to the contact like he thought Sam would be repulsed by him.

He took a deep breath. “Cas… Lucifer was a good play. You made a logical move, and I do not hold you accountable. Things have only gone so badly because Crowley tried to take Lucifer for himself, the bastard…” He raised his arms for the angel to find comfort in and held the smaller body in a hug. Cas seemed to cling on with all the force in him, afraid of the hug ending, of losing the comfort he never seemed to get enough of.

“Cas. I will never forget what Lucifer has done to me, what he has done to us all. But nobody is to blame for what he has done. Certainly not you. I think you have paid enough, what with the possession and the…“ His voice cracked “dying, you know?”

They sat in silence, arms encircling each other in a hug far, far longer than Dean would have allowed in any situation, even death situations. But, he thought, they deserved it after all they had gone through. They deserved some simple comforts in this world.

Cas sighed into his chest. “Thank you, Sam. Thank you for your forgiveness.” He sounded like he had been crying, even though he had held the tears in. Sam was realising just how much this had been weighing down on his friend.

“I will always try to forgive you, Cas.” Sam looked over to Jack, who had somehow stayed asleep through the whole emotion-filled conversation. “Anyway… if you hadn’t done what you did, we wouldn’t have Jack.” He felt a huff of laughter against his chest. “And, I hate to say, I think we’d all miss him. Miss him by quite a lot.”

They separated from the hug, and sat in the comfortable quiet, listening to the kids breathing, waiting through the early hours of morning to go back home to join the rest of their family. Family, that felt like forgiveness and comfort, even if it sometimes came a little late.

**Author's Note:**

> I was just going to write a quick little thing with Sam and Cas talking about Lucifer, but then... It needed a setting, and it became mildly a casefic with Jack as well, and a random creature that I am pretty sure doesn't exist. Oh well, at least they are talking. I hope that you enjoyed this and I would very, very much appreciate any comments or kudos : ) I wish you all good days.


End file.
